How to Keep Track of Your Battery Levels

January 29, 2013

It is the end of a long day of shooting, and you have one last crucial shot/interview to get, when all a sudden “click!!!!” your camera shuts down. Your heart sinks as you check the camera screen to find that evil little empty battery symbol mockingly blinking back. “Its ok… I have spare batteries” you say to yourself as you franticly search your bag for batteries…

SNAP.

You know how you told yourself you would keep your full and empty batteries separate? Well, you didn’t, and now you get to check each battery in your camera while everyone else waits and watches… And you just missed your shot. Good times, good times.

This is painful to a lot of us because we’ve all been there. It just plain sucks. BUT today I’ll show you my solution to this problem.

Most people don’t know this, but there is a built in way to label your batteries as full or empty. This works best with the Canon LP-E6 batteries, but you can make it work with any battery with a simple mod. If you look at the back of your LP-E6 battery you will see two colors, blue and gray.

Now take a look at the battery cap/cover, you will notice a small battery icon cutout:

If your battery is fully charged, simply position the cutout over the blue part. If it is empty, put it over the gray. Bam! Simple no?

If you don’t have LP-E6 batteries, or your off brand ones don’t have the blue side, simply take a colored marker and mark where the cutout goes. Here I just used a green marker.

If your batteries don’t have cutouts on the covers, you might be able to take a drill and make a hold in the cover. Otherwise, leave the covers off the empty batteries, and on the full ones.

Now that you have a system for marking your batteries, you can store them anyway you want. I keep all my batteries together in one place because I know with one glance I can tell what my battery situation is.

Do you have a different system? Have any gear storing tips for us? Share in the comments!

Need batteries? I’d recommend Amazon or B&H Photo Video. And if you buy from these links you will be supporting DSLR Video Shooter. Thank you!